So This Is Christmas
by TangerineFields
Summary: Christmas was always Sirius' favourite time of year. A tale of two very different Christmasses in the BlackxLupin household


Disclaimer: Sirius and Remus and all their Christmas time nonsense and otherwise, belong to Ms. J. K. Rowling

**So This Is Christmas**

"Come on, Rem, its Christmas!"

On the radio in the corner of their small flat, Band Aid were blaring. Sirius had made a grab for Remus' hand and was dragging him round the living room as he danced and waved a chunk of silver tinsel.

"Feed the world!" He warbled, "Let them know its Christmas time!"

"Pads!" Sirius' grinning was contagious and Remus felt himself well and truly infected. "Come on, you're going to break something!"

"Way up North where the air gets cold there's a tale about Christmas that you've all been told!" Sirius waved the tinsel above his head, his cheeks glowing red as he skipped around the tiny room.

"No, not the Beach Boys! Oh come on Sirius!" Remus was laughing despite himself, danced around like some festive May pole. "Even you're not that cheesy."

Sirius stopped mid jive and glared at Remus, "Take that back!" He huffed, "Yours truly has never had occasion to be cheesy in his life!"

Remus raised an eyebrow, and grabbed hold of the tinsel, pulling it from Sirius' hands.

"Oi!"

"Mine now." Eyes gleaming, Remus took the strand of silver and draped it tightly around Sirius' neck and then placed a kiss on his nose. "Come on, you. Christmas tree time."

* * *

"What about Geoff?"

"We're not calling the tree, Geoff."

Sirius pouted and crossed his arms. "What's wrong with Geoff? Geoff was that first year that fell into the soup last Christmas. It'd make us laugh."

"We're not naming the tree, Sirius. It's a tree."

Sirius cast a longing glance at the fat mass of pine needles and white netting lying across the backseat. "We could name it Prongs."

"Prongs?" Remus snorted and glanced across at Sirius and away from the mass of traffic crawling along the road back into town.

"You know, 'cos it's prickly." Sirius shrugged, "Just an idea. And I'd keep your eyes on the road if I were you, Moons. Lily's gonna have your balls pickled if you crash her baby and I'd miss them, honestly I would." Sirius winked.

Remus shot Sirius a disapproving glance. "I thought Christmas was your less filthy time of year?"

And just to prove a point, Sirius launched into a decidedly sexy rendition of 'Not Tonight Santa', and as his hand slipped between Remus' thighs, a Muggle woman crossing the road nearly lost more than her Christmas shopping.

* * *

"Graham," Sirius puffed through the door, his breath white against the night sky. He rubbed his hands together as he pulled off his boots.

"Graham what?" Remus stepped to greet him with a steaming mug of coffee, shutting the door with one, well aimed tap.

"The tree," Sirius beamed up at him, his nose glowing bright pink. "It suits him. He looks like a Graham."

"I told you, we're not naming the tree."

Sirius trailed after him into the living room, cuddling his mug of coffee in icy hands. "Oh come on, Rem. I just froze my arse off carting him into the garden and filling up that bloody bucket," he huffed and slumped down into a chair by the electric fire. "Least you can do is humour me."

"But Graham?" Remus shook his head sceptically, wandering into the kitchen to fetch his hot chocolate. "For a tree? Can't you call it, I don't know, Spiky? Spruce?"

Sirius ached an eyebrow. "Spruce? Where are we, Moons, the bloomin' Highlands? Spruce! Spruce there's a moose loose in the hoose me laddie!"

Sirius' Scottish accent was so terrible that Remus had to laugh. "Don't give up your day job, Pads."

"If you don't let me call the tree Graham, Scottish Sirius is here to stay."

"Ooh," Remus pursed his lips. "There's a threat." He grinned, and sank down in the armchair across from a pugging Sirius. "Fine, Graham it is. No decking him in tartan. And I'm not eating haggis."

"But you love Scotland," Sirius was beaming triumphantly, sprawled out in his chair. "Ack me laddie I've lost me sporran!" He giggled uproariously, and winked at Remus. "Least you will if I get anything to do with it."

Remus threw a custard cream at him. "Will you ever grow up?"

"No," Sirius grinned, "And admit it; you wouldn't love me if ever I did."

* * *

"Come on, Sirius, it's Christmastime."

The radio in the corner of the dingy kitchen was twinkling to Michael Ball, and Remus, despite himself, couldn't help but sway a little as he stood in front of Sirius in the cold air. It was too early for any reasonable soul to be up, and the fire had crackled and died hours ago.

"Does it matter, Rem?" Sirius sighed, and glanced up at his friend, face ashen. "It's all so childish."

Remus arched an eyebrow. "Sirius, please retract that."

"What?" Sirius grumbled churlishly. "Christmas is childish? No. Why should I?"

Michael Ball was still driving home for Christmas as Remus extended a hand to the shattered effigy that had been his best friend. "Dance with me."

"No."

"Come on, it's Christmas."

"Remus, I'm not dancing. I'm not in the mood."

"Well say I'm feeling unusually festive today." Remus smiled, feeling strangely better than he had in months. "Sirius, try, for me? Please?"

"Fine." Sirius sighed heavily, taking Remus' extended hand, their fingers frozen as they entwined familiarly.

Remus lent his head on Sirius' shoulder as they moved through the kitchen, breathing softly into his friend's shoulder. "Sing for me?"

Sirius had the decency to attempt to smile. "Thought you hated my singing."

"You know I never meant that."

Sirius sighed, and began to croon along, "So I sing for you, though you can't hear me. When I get through, and feel you near me," Sirius could sing, when he tried, and Remus melted into the warmth and the memories that that comfortable sound brought back.

The creak of the door didn't register with either of them, still entwined in the middle of the kitchen floor, hands and hair sleepily tangled. It was only when Molly coughed rather loudly from the doorframe that the early morning trance ended, and they broke apart, Sirius suddenly very interested in his bare feet.

"You two ought to be in bed," Molly clucked officiously, busying herself with fetching a glass of water. "If you leave the radio on like that you'll have the whole house up." She looked disdainfully at Sirius who stared, vacantly back.

"We'll turn it down, Molly," Remus forced a smile, and placing a guiding hand on Sirius' bony shoulder, pushed him gently down into one of the empty chairs.

"Night then," Molly smiled indulgently at them, and Remus waved half heartedly in response.

"I think I might go up as well, Rem." Sirius was drilling a hole into the floorboards again and for a long time, neither of them said anything.

"Sirius?"

"What?"

"You used to love Christmas."

Sirius glanced up and smiled at him, old and worn out, "I did, didn't I."

"We could get the tree tomorrow?" Remus laid a hand comfortingly on Sirius' cheek, and felt stubble prickle his palm. "How about it?"

"I can't go out, Rem."

"You could, as Padfoot," Remus was trying desperately to smile. "Come on, we'll get another Graham, remember? Best tree we ever had."

Sirius gazed at him expressionlessly.

"Gods, Sirius." Remus closed his eyes but the tear still rolled away down his cheek. "I can't stand this." He got to his feet, the scrape of his chair jarring with Slade jangling on the radio. "I'm going to bed."

"Remus," Sirius caught his hand. "I'm sorry."

Remus stared into his sunken grey eyes for a long moment and then shook his head, "Then I wish you'd bloody well prove it, Sirius."

* * *

"Bauble, Molly?" Sirius was in his best jacket, all crushed velvet and sparkling smiles, proffering a gleaming purple bauble to a sleep encrusted Mrs Weasley. Remus heard her gasp as she stepped into the living room, her slippered feet faltering.

"Sirius, it's beautiful," she gushed, sounding suddenly very much like Ginny. "How did you-"

Remus could picture the shrug, the indolent glance at whatever it was that had Molly in raptures. "I was always McGonagall's pet."

"Yes but…"

Remus, rubbing his temples, decided that this was the moment to enter, before Sirius actually needed help extracting his head from his own arse, but even his breath caught in his throat as he stepped over the threshold.

Sirius had always wanted bigger, better, bushier Christmas trees and with the help of 12 Grimmauld Place's cavernous ceilings, he had finally got one. The scent of pine, that one smell that Sirius had always refused to have a Christmas without hit Remus the moment he stepped into the room. Towering over the room, still green and bare, the tree was something utterly magnificent.

"Morning Moons," Sirius was smiling softly, and as Remus surveyed the room, boxes of baubles strewn across the shabby carpet, tinsel looped over faded chairs, he felt a similar smile tug at the corners of his own lips. "Bauble?"

Remus took it wordlessly, staring sleepily into his own, lined and pinkly reflected eyes, and then stepped toward Sirius and with one last glance at the extremes the man was willing to go to for the sake of 'bloody proving it', took his face in his hands and kissed him.

"Woah!" There was a pile up in the doorway as the Weasley twins stopped everyone dead in their tracks. "Hold up! There's not even any mistletoe up yet!"

Molly thwacked her sons. "Shush!" She hissed, "And to the kitchen, all of you, your porridge is going cold!" Fred wolf whistled as Remus' hands threaded their way through Sirius' startlingly neat hair. "You too, young man!" Molly barked, and Remus heard the key twist in the lock as she left.

"Clearly," Sirius growled, "She thinks we're going to be a while."

Remus smiled, and glanced back down at the bauble that he had carelessly dropped. "With a tree this big?" He winked at Sirius, who smirked back. "I suppose we may be some time."


End file.
